While taking a stroll upon the rolling hills or having a picnic under the
shade of one of the many trees in the beautiful 80 acre
Cheesman
Park, many visitors don’t realize that they very well may be walking
or sitting right upon the grave of one of the many who were buried here in
the 19th century. Surrounded by Capitol Hill mansions in the heart
of downtown
Denver,
ColoradoCheesman
Park is not only frequented by visitors wanting to explore its
botanical gardens or enjoy its 150 mile panoramic view from the pavilion,
but is also said to be home to a number of restless spirits.

The
park’s history began in 1858 when General William Larimer jumped the claim
of the St. Charles Town Company and established his own town, which he
called
Denver.

In actuality, the
property didn’t belong to the Town Company either; rather the land
legally belonged to the
Arapaho
Indians. In November, 1858, Larimer set aside 320 acres for
a cemetery, which is now the site of present-day
Cheesman and Congress Parks. Larimer called it Mount Prospect
Cemetery and several large plots were designated on the crest of the
hill for the exclusive use of the city’s wealthy and most influential
citizens. The outermost edge of the cemetery was reserved for
criminals and paupers, while the middle class were to be interred
somewhere in between.

The first man buried
in the cemetery was named Abraham Kay, who died after being suddenly
stricken with a lung infection. He was buried on March 20, 1859. However, the most often story told of the first person buried was a
man hanged for murder. Making for a far more interesting tale, it has
become the more preferred version.

The second man buried
at the cemetery was a Hungarian immigrant named John Stoefel. Having arrived in
Denver
to allegedly settle a dispute with his brother-in-law, he ended up
shooting the man on April 7, 1859. Both men were gold
prospectors, and witnesses believed that Stoefel was really there
because he wanted his brother-in-law’s gold dust. Because the
nearest official court was in
Leavenworth,
Kansas, a "people’s court" was assembled, where Stoefel was
convicted of murder. On April 9, 1859 he was hanged from a
cottonwood tree at the intersection of 10th and Cherry Creek Streets. Though
Denver consisted of only 150 buildings at the time, about 1,000
spectators attended the Stoefel hanging. Afterwards his body, along
with his brother's were dumped into the same grave at the edge of the
cemetery.

As the outermost edge of the cemetery
began to fill with
outlaws, vagrants, and paupers,
Denver
citizens began to call the cemetery the "Old Boneyard” and "Boot
Hill.” Mt. Prospect gained yet another nickname when a popular
professional gambler named Jack O’Neill was gunned down outside of a
saloon in March, 1860. The whole event began when O’Neil, a
handsome Irish man, quarreled with a less than credible man who
went by the name of "Rooker.” As the argument progressed,
O’Neill suggested the two settle the argument with bowie knives in a
back room. However, when Rooker refused, O’Neill questioned his
heritage as well as that of several of his family members. A
couple of days later, Rooker shot O’Neil down as he passed by the door
of the Western Saloon. When the Rocky Mountain News
printed the story, the cemetery also became known as "Jack O’Neil’s
Ranch.”

After receiving these
many nicknames, the cemetery never gained the respect that Larimer
intended for it to have. The influential citizens of
Denver's
society were most often buried elsewhere, leaving the graveyard to burials
of the poor, criminal, and diseased.

When Larimer eventually left
Denver,
Mt. Prospect was claimed by a cabinet-maker named John Walley, who also
just happened to be an aspiring undertaker. A report in 1866 stated that
626 persons were buried in the cemetery. Walley did an
extremely bad job of keeping up the cemetery which soon fell into a
terrible state of disrepair as headstones were toppled, graves were
vandalized and sometimes, even cattle were allowed to graze upon the land. Some legends even tell of homesteaders who began to live upon the land.

What was left of the cemetery about 1950,
photo

courtesy Denver Public Library.

In 1872, the U.S.
Government determined that the property upon which the cemetery sat was
federal land, having been deeded to the government in an 1860 by a treaty
with the Arapaho
Indians. The government then offered the land to the City of
Denver
who purchased it for $200. A year later, the cemetery’s name was
changed to the
Denver
City Cemetery.

Over time, separate areas
of the cemetery were designated for various religious, organizational, and
ethic groups, such as the Odd Fellows, Society of Masons, Roman Catholics,
Jewish, the Grand Army of the Republic, and a far away segregated section
for the Chinese, near the pauper's graves. While some of this
sections were well kept up by family descendants or their organizations,
others were terribly neglected.

In 1875, twenty acres at
the north part of the cemetery were sold to the Hebrew Burial Society, who
then maintained it, while much of the rest of the graveyard grew tall with
weeds.

In 1881, a "hospital” for
those suffering from small pox was established just south of the Jewish
Cemetery. The hospital, more often referred to as a "pest house,”
was where small pox victims were quarantined, along with others having
contagious diseases, and some that were merely sick, elderly, or
handicapped. Most "patients” were simply left at the pest house to
die. Behind the building was the Potter’s field section of the graveyard,
where the vast majority of the dead were buried in mass graves.

By the late 1880’s, the
cemetery was seldom used and had fallen into even worse disrepair,
becoming a terrible eyesore in what had become one of the most prestigious
parts of the burgeoning city. Real estate developers soon began to
lobby for a park rather than an unused cemetery. Before long,
Colorado Senator Teller persuaded the U.S. Congress to allow the old
graveyard to be converted to a park. On January 25, 1890, Congress
authorized the city to vacate Mt. Prospect and in recognition, Teller
immediately renamed the area Congress Park.

Families were then given
90 days to remove the remains of their departed to other locations.
Those who could afford to began to transfer the bodies to other
cemeteries throughout the city. Due to the large number of graves in
the Roman Catholic section, Mayor Bates sold the 40 acre area to the archdiocese, which was named the Mount Cavalry Cemetery. The Chinese
section of the graveyard was placed in the hands of a large
population of Chinese who lived in the "Hop Alley” section of
Denver. The majority of these bodies were then removed and shipped to their
homeland of China.

However, most those buried in the cemetery
were vagrants, criminals, and paupers. When the majority of bodies
remained unclaimed, the City of
Denver
awarded a contract to undertaker E.P. McGovern to remove the remains in
1893. McGovern was to provide a "fresh” box for each body and
transfer it to the Riverside Cemetery at a cost of $1.90 each. The
gruesome work began on March 14, 1893, before an audience of
curiosity-seekers and reporters. For the first few days, the
transfer was orderly. However, the unscrupulous McGovern soon found
a way to make an even larger profit on the contract. Rather than
utilizing full-size coffins for adults, he used child-sized caskets that
were just one foot by 3 ½ feet long. Hacking the bodies up, McGovern
sometimes used as many as three caskets for just one body. In their haste,
body parts and bones were literally strewn everywhere and in the
disorganized mess, "souvenir” hunters began to loot the open graves and
coffins.